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August 31, 2005
American nationalism
In his America Right or Wrong: An Anatomy of American Nationalism, by Financial Times columnist Anatol Lieven, warns that the US polity is turning its back on the civic patriotism of the "American creed" of liberty, the rule of law and political egalitarianism in favor of an "American antithesis", a radical and vengeful nationalism.
Lieven argues that there have been two kinds of American nationalism:--a civic nationalism, based on universalist principles of the enlightenment and that was expressed in the Declaration of Independence 229 years ago; and a far more aggressive and exclusivist nationalism that harkens back to the Protestant Reformation and the religious wars that it sparked.
This reinforces what I've thought. The former is based on reason, citizenship, the rule of law and the Enlightenment; the latter is anti-modern and counter Enlightenment. The latter has come to the fore with the Bush Republican Administration, and is marked by moral absolutism, messianism, a contempt for history and militantly chauvinist even though it wears the mask of in the universalist rhetoric of democracy and freedom.
Posted by Gary Sauer-Thompson at August 31, 2005 03:20 PM
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